The Small Arms Thread, Part 8: 2018; ICSR to be replaced by US Army with interim 15mm Revolver Cannon.

[Sturgeon]

Bloke replicating the Pedersen waxing process:

 

[LoooSeR]

Belgians at Storm Tide-3.

 

 

 

 

[Bronezhilet]

Yes their uniform really looks like that.

No it does not work.

Yes they are ashamed of themselves.

[LoooSeR]

They always can accept their Lord and Savior MultiJesuscam.

[Alex C.]

Yall might recognize a few faces in this video:

 

 

[Sturgeon]

I love his elegant solution of just cutting everyone fucking up.

I still don't know why my No.4 wouldn't feed that day. It did just fine when I took it to the range the weekend before. It seems all fuckups must happen on camera...

[Belesarius]

Handgun Replacement program saga continues. US Army to downselect to 3 competitors by August.

 

"Entrants are understood to include Beretta's APX, Ceská zbrojovka's CZ P-09, FN Herstal's Five-Seven Mk 2, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GDOTS) and Smith & Wesson's M&P polymer handgun; the Glock 17 and 22; and Sig Sauer's P320."

 

Edit: GD makes handguns? oO

 

http://www.janes.com/article/60814/us-army-moves-ahead-with-handgun-replacement-programme

[Collimatrix]

The XM8 was a joint HK/GD project near the end of its fishy life.  What I was told is that HK wanted to team up with a company who really understood the ins and outs of US government procurement, and GD wanted to expand their portfolio of US government contracts.

 

This could be something similar.

[Sturgeon]

One of the problems with these long-range cartridge concepts is that of transonic buffeting. When a rifle projectile is traveling at supersonic speeds, it's happy; but as it loses velocity and approaches the speed of sound, it may exhibit weird behavior, including slowing down a lot more than expected, due to stability loss and other nastiness. Accuracy often dramatically decreases at this threshold, as well. The boundary for this is often held to be Mach 1.2.

One way to defeat this problem is to have a clever bullet design that stays stable through this regime. The problem is that it seems bullet designers at least have trouble reliably designing bullets that possess both maximum ballistic efficiency at high speeds (in other words, have good form factors and therefore high BCs for their weight) and remain stable through the transonic regime. There is, however, another solution:

 

 

That would be to just stuff the highest efficiency bullet in the fattest case and fling it at high pressures and high velocities. That way, the bullet stays above Mach 1.2 for as long as is absolutely possible. I created this concept just as an experiment within this idea, to see what the lightest configuration that stayed above Mach 1.2 to 900m*, while staying below 20 kJ/cm^2 heat flux, would look like, given a bullet design I've been working with that's a sort of cross between EPR-type construction and the Berger 130gr AR Hybrid shape (which has a really nice estimated i7FF of 0.86).

*For reference, 5.56mm M855 (2,920 ft/s) goes below Mach 1.2 at 550m, and 7.62mm M80 (2,800 ft/s) does the same at 680m, at sea level, normal atmospheric conditions.

As you can see, with Mach 1.188 at 900m, and 19.9979 kJ/cm^2 heat flux, I juuuuust barely squeaked by with this one. Still, it's an interesting round, and I think proof that a turbocharged SCHV-type round could have competitive long-range performance, given good enough bullet design.

[Donward]

Handgun Replacement program saga continues. US Army to downselect to 3 competitors by August.

 

"Entrants are understood to include Beretta's APX, Ceská zbrojovka's CZ P-09, FN Herstal's Five-Seven Mk 2, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GDOTS) and Smith & Wesson's M&P polymer handgun; the Glock 17 and 22; and Sig Sauer's P320."

 

Edit: GD makes handguns? oO

 

http://www.janes.com/article/60814/us-army-moves-ahead-with-handgun-replacement-programme

 

"One defence source suggested that .45-calibre weapons appear to have been discounted because of size, weight, and accuracy issues. Most manufacturers are therefore supplying weapon systems in a range of calibres as part of their bids."

 

[Khand-e]

"One defence source suggested that .45-calibre weapons appear to have been discounted because of size, weight, and accuracy issues. Most manufacturers are therefore supplying weapon systems in a range of calibres as part of their bids."

 

 

I didn't realize the Wicked Witch was a German tank commander.

[LoooSeR]

Worst Korea new model of K2 rifle

[LoooSeR]

Ukraine, again.

 

 

 

Security of strategical objects. Looks like Zbroyar rifles.

 

Note Scorpion tatto on right guy.   

[Khand-e]

Also, while I really do like the concept of the Five-Seven Mk2 (and my Wife's Mk2), I find it incredibly odd they'd submit that design of all things, since the 5.7mm round was basically killed in NATO standardization and I don't see the US changing calibers for pistols of all weapons which.... don't really do all that much in a military setting.

 

Yeah, I've posted that I think SCHV pistols are basically the future for various reasons. (if you need a weapon that basically acts like a PDW, but smaller and less fast then the P90 in this case, it damn well penetrate at least soft body armor and helmets/ballistic masks at decent ranges while having minimal recoil.) however, logistics are a thing, a really big thing as a matter of fact, would the US Army really switch their entire ammo supply out for a new caliber for a pistol of all things? mainly when I don't even think they'd consider the P90 to go along with it as a PDW for second line troops.

 

On the other hand, I think FN would be one of the shoe ins to win if they submitted the FNS or FNX designs instead, given that they basically offer everything they're looking for, while also being from a brand known to already have very close ties with the US Armed Forces.

[Khand-e]

Worst Korea new model of K2 rifle

 

I find it incredibly funny how much some gun enthusiasts in the US praise the K2 for whatever reason or the odd export derivatives that sometimes find there way here, yet when every Korean friend I've talked to whose either in the Army under his 2 years or already finished mentions rifles, I've never failed to hear how he (and damn near everyone he talked to) vastly preferred the M16A1 (or the M16A2 in the case of KATUSA soldiers) and would go out of their way to get their hands on one over a K2.

 

Something about green grass goes here I'm sure, but fuck it.

[LoooSeR]

MP7, tactikewled

[LoooSeR]

Ukraine, again.

 

....

 

Security of strategical objects. Looks like Zbroyar rifles.

 

Note Scorpion tatto on right guy.   

Looks like those guys are from Azov, nicknamed "Molyar" and "Odissey".

 

 

 

 

Those are from security of strategic objects

[Sturgeon]

Behold the worst article on the M14 you've ever seen: http://wethearmed.com/rifles/m14-m1a-rifles/

 

Courtesy Oedipus.

[LoooSeR]

Bullpup time!

 

 

 

And AK-74 in hands of FSB "V" directorate (Vympel)

 

 

 

 

[LoooSeR]

Claimed to be SR-4 sniper rifle for SP-14 catridge

 

PSS-2

[Collimatrix]

Larry Vickers with the Dragunov MA:

 

[LoooSeR]

Larry Vickers with the Dragunov MA:

 

U SO SLOW. Previous page

http://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/14-the-small-arms-thread-part-6-the-leverution-will-not-be-televised/?p=63869

Trololo

 

[LoooSeR]

 

Minnesotan in #Iraq since Feb 2015 w/ a WWII Red Army PPSh41 captured from #IS. Note the foregrip.

[Collimatrix]

Necromancer's dildo?

[Collimatrix]

The Military Firearm Forum has been putting out a lot of good information about the CETME-L lately.  None of it is encouraging.

 

 

 

 

 

As for magazines, they were two welded steel halves, heavy and often too thick. It was usual before going to the firing range to test a bunch of magazines, and perhaps finding only one or two in ten to fit the mag-well right, and slide free. Feeding problems due to the follower and heavy spring weren't that easy to find until you started shooting.
Most of the soldiers who took it seriously bought surplus NATO mags, and it was usual to see a squad or platoon after any joint exercise looking for any magazine that could be found, since most other armies just dumped and forgot about them once empty.
I found in 97 an old GI mag with a rusty spring buried in a Sardinian beach, and it worked way better than the ones I had with me. I still have it.

 

 

 

A bit longer would be that the factory charged too much for each rifle (around 1100$US in 1995!), so they were asked to lower prices. And that came from the quality of materials used and quality control.
From 94-95 (i think) onwards, many "brand new rifles" had hammer springs so weak that barely scratched the primers, firing pins with steel so soft that lost their tips in a few shots, main springs that couldn't lock the bolt, crappy magazines, receivers that bent easily, misaligned chambers and barrels...
Older rifles didn't fare better, with a mostly conscript army, and only the "new and cheaper" spares.

AMELIs suffered the worst from this. You could even find smootbore barrels in some! Many foreign sales (the British bought 2000) were returned the same week, when the buyers saw what was received wasn't what had passed their trials. But our army couldn choose, so had to keep what the government gave us.

 

 

 

The mirror polished hammers had a softer steel, and marks from hitting the firing pin where quite noticeable. Also, the pins holding them in place loosened after some use, and could fell when dissasembling the rifle. But when new, everything was so tight, that it was normal to bend (and even break) the selector trying to move it (I spent for months in Bosnia with the selector stuck in semiauto, since I had to disassemble the rifle to move it). The selector is loose unless it's also held in place by the receiver. It's tricky to assemble and disassemble until you have done it a few times.
The hammer spring was an issue worsened by the hard primers in our ammo. I still have lying around some shells with several pin marks that didn't fire. Mushrooming in the firing pin can be a problem if the spring is weak, too. Due to the hammer catch design, even if the rifle didn't fire reliably in semiauto, it did in full auto since it has a little more travel space.